


Pilot

by epithetta



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:52:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epithetta/pseuds/epithetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-three years later, he almost forgets and then he doesn't. In the middle of the night he wakes and thinks, <em>Oh yeah, I have that thing.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Written utilising the writerinadrawer prompt 4.03-- reverse fandom (base story on title from Sports Night episode) and added element: mention an invertebrate.

It's centuries into the future by the time he thinks of it, not because he forgets, but because he doesn't remember. DNA is easy to come by with his resources, and while giving him the tour through the varying stages, from flipping roundworms to head, shoulders, knees and toes, the receptionist explains that if he wants the deluxe package, the wait is long, lifetime-long, but most people clone themselves, so they don't mind waiting.

Jack bats his eyelashes and says, "Honey, all I got is time."

Well, and millions and millions of credits.

Twenty-three years later, he almost forgets and then he doesn't. In the middle of the night he wakes and thinks, _Oh yeah, I have that thing._

He bones up. He goes back through the Torchwood files, the ones he has hidden everywhere in the universe, and finds the information he needs. He reads about coffee and Tool and James Bond. 

"We used the memory implants you gave us," the doctor says, "but they were spotty, so we supplemented with things that fit the personality profile." 

Jack smiles at her but he's too busy looking beyond her, until they get to the reception room, and he can't bring himself to go any farther.

Ianto stands when he sees him, smiles, holds out his hands. "Jack," he says, as if time and death had simply paused him, and now he is unfrozen. Jack reaches him but doesn't touch, because he's thought about this too much. It is Ianto who presses his mouth in, smelling of old Earth cologne and mouthwash.

When Ianto pulls away, his eyes flit from his face to the woman, her dark skin startling against her lab coat, her short cap of hair leaving bare her arched neck. Jack watches his eyes roam her cheek, her lashes, his neurons firing away, accessing memories they've loaded like an old operating system on a new machine.

When he finally turns to Jack again, there is a glimmer of something old and primal, resentment in the dark, and Jack knows the experiment is a failure before it even begins.

END


End file.
